Foreign Institutional Investors Raise Voice Against Corruption

November 14, 2010

It is unbelievable that the Government headed by Dr Manmohan Singh can be the most corrupt government in the History of Independent India. I don’t think I have to prove this in the court of law, but everybody agrees with me. A word of caution as I read a report from a leading FII with massive interest in Indian market which states,

As the demand for land has increased since the 1990s, so has the level of corruption. Issues over land acquisition have been quickly politicised by almost all of the political parties with an eye on electoral gains. Another dimension of the rising corruption and cosy political-business nexus has been the growing influence of Naxals, the left-wing extremists.

The report further adds that,

Corruption can dent the Indian growth story.

If India needs to maintain a GDP growth of 9%, it will need about eight million hectares of land, or 2.4% of the nation’s 329 million hectare land mass, for mining, industrialisation, infrastructure and urban housing Forced land acquisition, inadequate compensation, environmental issues and corruption are the primary causes for protests.

This comes as a surprise to us that FIIs have started taking into account the Corruption Factor into Rating and Growth expectations which is cause of concern but don’t blow this factor out of proportion though we all know how badly the disease is rooted in India.